Fancy making a contact plan?

A contact plan is a drawing about how, when and what we will tell customers of our database by emails. Having a good database is essential for growing companies, and we must learn how to get more followers, but especially how not to lose them. Then we offer you 3 key points to develop a good contact plan with your customers. For example if your company has an e-commerce you can create a contact plan considering which products you want to promote monthly. If we talk about a service business you can explain in your e-mails the new achievements or innovations; or communicate discounts or promotions. All this taking into account the next steps:

Why is important to have a contact plan?

– Customer loyalty management.

– To help you to develop your business.

– To grow the references of your clients about your products or brands.

– It will help you as well, to sell more and quickly.

Type of communication

– Welcome: you have to be polite and welcome those who have begun to follow you. If you want a real and good relation with your clients, you must be clear and don’t create false hopes. A good way to be sure that this customer really cares about you, is to make a double opt-in. This, that sounds so modern, is just a communication check about if the customer data and interest are true. This practice is required in countries like Germany and the Netherlands, in order to ensure data protection. This step also helps you to have a good database and ensure that you don’t have false email accounts that can generate many problems in the near future.

-Segmentation of your database: we are not equal, so you have to distinguish people who follow us. Male or female, age, location, languages… the list never ends. Apart from these personal data that you can ask on your registration form, you can set other terms depending on the activity of your customers with your communications. An example:

MVP customers – customers who are loyal and talk about you with their colleagues.

Best customers – those who buy and follow you, but you don’t know if they talk about you with anybody.

Customers you don’t want – those who don’t pay and are difficult to deal with. Try not to send them many e-mails because you don’t want them as clients.

New customers – have made their first purchase with you within the past month.

Customers who have purchased in the last year.

Customers who have not purchased in the last 13/24/36 months.

Lost customers – those who haven’t bought in the past three years. We will see later what you should do with theme.

-Goals: write specific and measurable goals for what you want to achieve with each of these groups and how often you want to contact them. One of the great advantages of modern computing is that you can measure everything. Now, there is no excuse for not knowing where to improve and learn from mistakes.

-Number of communications and year calendar: once you start these communications you must define the number of emails you want to send to your customers. You don’t have to be boring! Nor comply with the agreement. A good way to continue with the contract is to have an annual communications plan or to make a monthly template about what you want to communicate.

Other actions of the contact plan

-Track all responses: once you have sent the emails you must have a whole report with statistics. All data analyzes: openings, clicks, sales, cancellations, spam, etc… Update your database with each shipment, make sure the cancellations are made immediately, do not force anyone to follow us. And evaluate how you can improve it: the hour or the day of shipment, which type of content works best, what links have been more successful…

-Re-engage the lost customer: for those customers that don’t react to your calls, try to make specific communications. If we talk about direct selling you can offer personalized discounts to capture them again. Another option is to ask directly what customers think of your service. A short questionnaire can help you to improve your communications and make the consumer feel how important is for your brand.

If you follow these steps you will have a good contact plan and your customers will benefit. Another time we will talk about the types of content that must be promoted in the newsletters. See you soon!